Dehradun, Chamba and New Tehri dam

Hello again everyone. This post is a short update on my explorations in Garwhal, the region surrounding Mussorie. Last Saturday Harry and I took a taxi down to Dehradun to buy a guitar. Unfortunately, there are no good music shops in Mussoorie, so we had to head into the big(ger) city. Neither of us were dissappointed as this gave us an excuse to explore a little bit. Actually, there's not too much to tell. All we found in Dehradun was rows upon rows of shops stretching down all the roads we walked through. It was interesting to see how similar shops tended to grouped on one street, with a few exceptions. It almost felt like walking through a Home Depot the size of a city, with clothing and food and everything else for sale. We had someone recommend a music shop to us previously, but just for run we went into this small, small music store that was (no joking) literally 4 feet wide. Maybe 5 if you include the shelf space. I sooo regret not taking a picture of Harry trying out guitars while sitting with his legs half twisted around. Anyway, we finally found the other music shop (after much walking and asking directions), and got a good guitar for a great price. Hopefully I can learn a few songs here and maybe even help out on the worship team.

This weekend, Ko and I made a kind of a spur-of-the-moment decision to hop on a bus and head out through the mountains to New Tehri, where a government dam has been built creating a huge lake. Lukily for us, a large storm had just passed through the previous day so the skies were crystal clear. We were blessed with some really astounding views of the Himalayas that we had never seen before. However, the pictures didn't turn out as well as I had hoped since our bus had shocks that threw us off our seats. After a 2 hour bus ride, we made it to Chamba which lies on the junction of several major mountain roads. on our way back we had some time to look around, and I really liked it. Its small than Mussorie, so it has a more intimate feel, but it gets a lot of traffic so there's usually a lot going on. Lukily for us, we chanced upon a jeep that was ready to head to New Tehri, so we jumped in along with 10 other people. Comfy. The tenth guy actually sat on someones lap. It was only about 20-30 minutes to Tehri, and when we arrived we grabbed some lunch and started to walk down to the water.

An interesting note about New Tehri, this town was completely master planned by a famous Indian architect and built at once. It was created for the residents of old Tehri to move to, because old Tehri now lies at the bottom of the lake created by the dam. 80 villages were also displaced by the creation of this lake, and the government provided land and houses for them in the plains near Rishikesh.

Anyway, we had no idea how to get to the dam, but you could see the lake from where we were (about 500 feet up) so we just started walking through the residential district. After about half an hour, some kids in a cricket game informed us that the dam was actually 14 kilometers away and you need to take the bus. Luckily for us, the bus stand just happened to be about 200 feet away. We grabbed the next bus down to the dam (which was interesting because I don't think a single person on the bus spoke more than a few words of english), and the driver alerted us at the stop we were supposed to get out. And there was no dam in sight. Not knowing what else to do and slightly worried because the last bus back to Mussoorie would leave in 90 minutes, we just started walking down the road. I guess the guy knew what he was talking about, because after 15 minutes we reached a beautiful view of the dam. Plus, we started talking to some guys that were there taking pictures and they offered us a ride all the way back to Chamba, in perfect time to catch the bus back to Mussoorie. Great day. I think it has also convinced us that random bus rides through the mountains are generally a good idea, and bound to be an interesting experience at the very least.

Some friends that we met on the bus

a view of New Tehri

Tehri dam, and part of the lake


One of the glorious views of the mountains